The truth is, there are really only two ways you can grow your practice. The first one is pretty obvious: more patients. As long as you’ve got the capacity, more patients—assuming everything else stays the same—will take your practice forward year after year. But here’s the second one, which is just as important: a larger spend per patient per year. If that average figure increases from one year to the next, and even if your patient numbers remain about the same, your practice must grow. That total number can increase either through more visits or through higher-value treatments. If you can identify and monitor that number, it becomes critical to achieving your growth goals.
So, how do you find that number? It’s actually quite straightforward. In every practice management software system, there is a report you can run—usually labelled something like ‘receipts’ or ‘invoices’ or ‘top patients by invoice’. Run that report for a 12-month period. It will list patients from the one who spent the most to the one who spent the least. Ensure that the report includes everyone in your practice across all providers, with just one entry per patient. Then, count how many people are on that list. For example, if you saw 1,200 patients in the past 12 months, find patient number 601. That’s your median patient spend per year. Repeat the same report for the previous year and compare those two middle figures. This will show you whether your average spend per patient is increasing. If it is, your practice is growing. If not, you may need to review your patient retention, recall systems, and the range of services you provide. This is a simple but powerful statistic that should be reviewed at least once a year to help drive your practice growth.